How Not to Celebrate International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day. It's a day to reflect on the place of women in cultures around the world, both in the United States, where most women are relatively well-off, and in other countries where women live under more restrictive conditions.

It's a broadly defined holiday, sure. But that's basically the gist of it: A day -- seriously, just one 24-hour period -- in which people are encouraged to think about and act toward women with the respect you'd afford to literally any other human being. The whole rest of the year is for Hooters and glass ceilings and Kourtney & Kim Take Miami. But on this one day, the world is asked to pause, briefly, from treating the female gender like one giant, cruel joke.

Surprise! The world has failed.

Here are some people who are not helping:

via Instagram, @deleasa

The caption to @deleasa's Instagram above reads, "Well hello ladies, today's your day! Happy international women's day!" Though he does seem to grasp the brevity of this holiday -- Today's your day! Not tomorrow, or the day after! Just today! -- his gift to the ladies of the world is doing just as much for impoverished and abused women in other countries as it is doing for me right now. Which is to say, nothing.

Happy International Women's Day buuut you're still watching me play COD tonight. #sorry#codprobs

Of course, these are missives from social media -- notorious dens of gross, hateful sexism. Surely the world of publishing, in which writers' words are vetted by the good intentions and moral compasses of their editors, is doing better. Right?

Just kidding! The Guardian's Suzanne Moore doesn't need your stupid hippie holiday, because (A) it's not a day off, (B) talking about female genital mutilation is awwwkward, and (C) she didn't even know it was International Women's Day in the first place. How about a day off from feminism, because all this women's equality is exhausting, isn't it?

And then, of course, there's Thrillist:

Here's the top story in today's daily email, a real one-two punch. First, they suggest we shove off this whole "celebrating women" nonsense and celebrate men instead. Then they suggest that those "men" should be two-decade-old slacker cartoons. A Top 10 list of the world's hottest women activists would actually have been less offensive.

So just in case you'd forgotten, ladies, today is a good time to remember this message:

Ciara LaVelle is New Times' arts and culture editor. She earned her BS in journalism at Boston University, moved to Florida in 2004, and landed a job as a travel writer. For reasons that seemed sound at the time, she gave up her life of professional island-hopping to join New Times' staff in 2011. She left the paper in 2014 to start a family, but two years and two babies later, she returned in the hopes that someone on staff would agree to babysit. No takers yet.